Chris Christie: N.Y. backyard press turns

For Chris Christie, the national spotlight has always been just across the bridge.

It’s about an hour’s drive from the Trenton statehouse to the studios of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where hosts refer to the New Jersey governor as a “friend” of the show — or to David Letterman’s couch, where he famously ate a doughnut before all of America. The New York Times is considered one of the local papers in the Garden State, and Manhattan’s tabloids have devoted significant attention to Christie’s theatrical politics and outsize personality.

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Christie's State of the State address

Media's mixed reaction

For four years, such proximity was a boon to Christie’s political ambitions, raising his national profile ahead of the 2016 presidential contest and affording him the sort of attention provincial politicians elsewhere in the country could only envy.

Then, it backfired: In the wake of the George Washington Bridge scandal, Christie has felt the wrath that can only come from having the unrelenting mass media universe in your backyard. The anchors, editors and reporters who once marveled at his brash style or gently mocked his girth have now turned to scrutinizing issues of far greater significance — including whether the presumptive presidential front-runner is even fit to govern his own state.

The avalanche of press isn’t due to proximity alone: Christie’s larger-than-life persona has played a significant part in his relationship with the national media as well. He has charisma. His blunt demeanor, aggressive attitude and willingness to pick fights in public — and often with reporters — make for great copy.

“I am not a focus-group-tested, blow-dried candidate or governor,” Christie said at a news conference last week.

And he is making for even better copy now that his skyrocketing political career has hit some turbulence.

“Christie has benefited from the media’s attention for four years. Now the screw is turning a different way,” John Heilemann, New York Magazine’s national affairs editor and the co-author of “Game Change,” said in an interview. “With the combination of being the Republican front-runner and being this close to the national media, there’s a new level of scrutiny.”

The proximity Christie once enjoyed to the center of the media universe now seems like a cruel joke. To wit, the Bridgegate emails released last week by the New Jersey Legislature show the vice chairman of the Port Authority Board claiming that Wall Street Journal reporter Ted Mann had been “instructed to sniff out this story by his editors who were stuck” in the traffic caused by Christie’s aides. (Mann later said his editors “take the train” and that he did not know where the vice chair’s comment came from.)

“I think there’s some old reporter’s maxim to this effect — or I think I recall hearing it once in some newsroom: ‘Tomorrow’s front page is whatever the managing editor drove past on the way to work,’” said Mark Leibovich, the New York Times Magazine chief national correspondent and author of “This Town.”

“Politicians based in and around New York tend to get disproportionate amounts of attention, usually for better, but not always,” Leibovich said.

For days, Christie has been lampooned on the front pages of the New York City tabloids (the Daily News declared him “pathetic”) and was even featured on the cover of The New Yorker as a little boy playing in traffic. Needless to say, late-night hosts like Letterman, Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart — all of whom are based in New York, and all of whom have had Christie on their respective shows — are having a field day.

Christie’s office declined to comment for this story.

Any likely presidential contender comes in for national media scrutiny at some point, but Christie’s proximity to the national media epicenter has elevated the scrutiny immeasurably.

“If history has taught us anything, it’s that when a potential presidential candidate gets involved in a bridge controversy, the bridge can be located in Alaska and still get the attention of the national media,” said Bob Garfield, the co-host of WNYC’s “On The Media.”

“That said, the fact that Christie is a ‘larger-than-life figure’ and probably the Republican frontrunner for 2016 — and the fact that the GW Bridge is one of the most traveled corridors in the world and there are more than 4 million votes within 20 miles of the bridge, and every major news organization — this was destined to blow up big,” he added. “And by the way, the story is so salacious and sordid and delicious and seductive that how could anyone turn away.”

New York-area politicians have always had a strange claim to the national spotlight. The New York Times, the national paper of record with a daily local section, devotes a disproportionate amount of attention to the exploits of figures like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Newark Mayor-turned-U.S. Sen. Cory Booker.